-hh
Lloyd Parsons wrote:

Lloyd E Parsons
Depends on what you call driving enjoyment.

-hh
Yup, which even though there is clustering, it ultimately is different for everyone.

Lloyd E Parsons
Back in the day I when I was young and>single, and for quite awhile after, I loved>a nice well performing car as much as the next guy.

Now I like the creature comforts,...

-hh
And "comfort" is simply another performance metric.

Brake Dive, Acceleration Squat, Body Roll Works LLC
An american car is a valid choice though as it keeps you from developing a potentially>>unhealthy attachment to the machine.

Lloyd E Parsons
Such infantile thinking. A car is a machine,>there is no love you can give that it will notice.

-hh
True, but there's a broad continuum of consumer perceptions, from the "in love with the iron" stereotype to the Consumer's Reports "its only an appliance". I think that the healthiest approach is to avoid anthropomorphizing an inanimate object, even though one can still have an appreciation for its engineering (especially when one can put that in context, including its shortcomings).

Brake Dive, Acceleration Squat, Body Roll Works LLC
American car prevents you from ending up wtih something as idiotic as a pimped out $50k sillicon valley civic (still ain't porsche after $30k>>was dumped into tuning, but it sure looks like>>shit with a fart can exhaust and that bulldozer skirting)...

-hh
Ah, the 'Rice Boy' stuff, particularly in the context of trying to compete with an OEM like Porsche ... hey, maybe I should ask Nasty if that's a Marquee with a heritage and products that he would be insanely jealous of? Ttempting! ;-) But in any case, if modding a basic car makes them happy, then so long as they also maintain perspective that it is their personal choice (and trade-offs), then why not? Sure, they're getting "cheap" performance today, but they're also trading-off some performance too - typically longer term suff, often called "reliability": we see the same thing in the Big Boy NASCAR leagues and the like: their engine design choices typically can't survive much more than 500 miles without needing rebuilds.

Brake Dive, Acceleration Squat, Body Roll Works LLC
... Maybe I'll graduate to your mode of thinking in 20-30 years but I hope I won't.

-hh
Or maybe you'll have a change in duty cycles where longer distance runs become more important to you, where a performance oriented setup becomes a NVH kidney buster and quite "unfun". This just might motivate you to contemplate a reprioritization of your 'performance metrics' for the next car you buy. Nothing "right" or "wrong" about it - simply a difference in personal priorities for what particular attributes receive more favor.

In a perfect world, all vehicles would have infinite adjustability across all such attributes and metrics at no additional cost...but until that day comes, about the best we can do is to fix several of the attributes (size, efficiency, NVH, etc) and then be willing to throw money at a some of the others (adjustable suspension setups).

-hh